Confronted
by Indecisively Lemonade
Summary: AU-ish. It's about time someone called Quinn out on it. Who better than Puck?


Background: Takes place during Season 2, a week or two after the _Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle_. A storm came to Ohio and gave the kids superpowers. Puck can start fires while Quinn can manipulate and create ice. Puck finally calls her out on life. It's about time.

* * *

_Confronted _

Fire Puck and Ice Quinn

* * *

He sees her walking out of the auditorium, through the actual exit. He's been dying for this moment, honestly. The moment to call her out on her shit and have her know exactly how he felt about all of this. Quite frankly, he had most of it planned out in his mind for a while. But all of that was thrown out the window when he truly caught a glimpse of her.

"Got bored of him that easily?" he calls out to her, dropping his cigarette to the ground and stepping it out.

Walking over to her, he says with a shrug. "That's understandable. You cheated once. Figures you wouldn't have a problem doing it again."

She nearly jumps a foot in the air at the sound of his voice, simply because she hadn't expected to run into anyone. She turns to face him and glares at his words.

"Shut up, Puckerman. And mind your own," she snaps.

"Sorry, but this became part of my business when you decided to cheat on my boy Sam with Finn of all people," Puck retorts.

"Seriously, did you wake up one morning and just decide that you were going to screw Sam over like this?" Puck flips. "He doesn't deserve this, you know."

"Don't you think I know that?" she asks rhetorically. "Don't you think I know how great Sam is? I just…" she groans. "Puck, what the hell do you want? What are you even doing here?"

"You just what? Decided that cheating on him would be the best thing to do? You've got some fucked up Christian morals there, Fabray," Puck points out, avoiding her question. "Forget it; I'm wasting my time. You do whatever the hell you want in your life. Disregard other people's feelings. It's what you've been doing all along. You're an expert at it."

"Not you too," she mumbles, frustrated, thinking back to the series of text messages she had received while in the auditorium.

She closes her eyes and rubs her temples, trying to calm herself down. She catches a glimpse of her hands and notices they've turned a darker shade of blue than she had seen and she quickly brings her hands back down and shoves them into the pockets of her dress. She turns away from him, still upset, but also hiding the changing color on her face.

"Just go away, Puck. Go away and mind your own business. This is between, Finn, Sam, and me. Not you, not anyone else."

"So you what? Plan on doing the same thing to Sam that you did before? Hiding all of this from him and not bothering on telling him at all," he says.

Puck knows he's pushing her buttons, pushing some buttons, but he has the chance now. No need to waste it. His next words, however, he has no idea where they come from. "Wait! I have a better idea! How's about you just let history completely repeat itself. Get pregnant with Finn's child now and tell Sam it's his. I'm sure if you modify the hot tub story he'll buy it. He's not that bright, either."

Quinn doesn't now how or where her next action came from, it just happens.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" she shouts, turning around and swinging her arm out, a bright bluish beam flying out of the palm of her hand and into Puck's chest. The beam sends him flying into the wall and traps his chest in an icy brace.

Her eyes widen like saucers and her jaw drops. She stares at him in shock, unable to believe what had just happened. When she sees the brace start to drip, sort of melting, is when she comes to.

"Oh my God, Puck! Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" she says covering her face with her hands.

"FUCKING SHIT!" Puck shouts, trying to get the melting ice brace off him. He takes a deep breath, surprised that when he exhales, he manages to exhale a hot enough breath that melts the ice right off of him.

"All right!" he says, getting up off the ground and holding onto his chest, temperature returning back to normal with each passing second. "Want to explain what the fuck just happened there or should I assume that you've gone completely apeshit crazy?"

Quinn looks down at her palms still unable to comprehend what had just happened. She then looks over at Puck, who is watching her expectantly, and remembers what he'd said to her, suddenly feeling her blood boil… Or freeze, if that's the better word.

"Don't act like you didn't deserve it," she snaps.

"Don't even think that justifies you going batshit crazy and practically killing me with your whatever!" Puck snaps.

His chest is aching, and when presses his hand to his shirt he actually feels the cold. "Fuck," he mutters, turning away and feeling his insides start to turn cold.

Concentrating on warmth, Puck manages to get himself feeling like normal, exhaling a breath of steam as his insides melt back to normal.

"You gonna explain what the hell that was or should I assume that the storm got to you too?"

"What do you think?" she asks rhetorically. "I don't know what the hell that was," she says with a roll of the eyes.

She runs her fingers through her hair, feeling the beads of sweat that had been running down her forehead freeze beneath her touch.

"Look," she mumbles, pointing the change out to him.

As if in a trance, Puck walks over to her, lightly tracing his finger over the frozen beads on her forehead.

Not only do they melt on contact, but that place where his finger lightly touched her skin seems to turn a light shade of blue.

"Whoa," he mutters. But he's too close, he soon realizes. It's been forever since he's touched her. Shocked, he takes a giant step back, muttering an apology while averting his eyes to the ground.

Her heart races and she feels chills run down her spine when he touches her. She looks up at him when she feels the crystals melt on her forehead. When he steps back so abruptly, she feels an ache in her chest, suddenly missing the contact, though she'd never admit it.

"Yeah," she murmurs looking down at her feet.

"I can't do this," he says to her, though mainly it's himself. He turns to grab his backpack off the ground and mutters to himself, "What the hell was I thinking?"

"Can't do what?" she asks, watching him as he prepares to leave. She has an idea but she isn't sure and she would rather hear it from his mouth.

He turns to her suddenly. "I can't stand here defending Sam when I was in Finn's position a year and a half ago. I can't stand here talking to you about this either," he admits, "'Cause part of me wishes it were me and not Finn."

He begins to talk away, leaving through the outside path instead of going inside.

"But don't worry," he turns to her and says, "we'll just pretend that none of this happened—just like everything else between us."

"I…" she starts but she isn't even sure what to say to him. Sorry most definitely isn't enough. She needs to get away from him now or else she'll break down. She wishes she were brave enough to open that can of worms. She takes a few steps closer to him and presses a tentative kiss to his cheek before hurrying back the other way, feeling cool tears start to run down her cheeks.

She's running away again. Running away from him and from the truth and everything he reminds her of.

But this time, he's not going to let her get away. He's sat back too many times—watched her walk away too many times. Frankly, he's tired of the view.

Knowing he'll probably regret this later (later on when his mind isn't a garbled mess because she kissed him—even if it was on the cheek), he still runs after her.

"Quinn! Wait!" he says, hoping that's enough to stop her in her tracks.

She's half-way down the hall with a tear-filled face when she hears him call her. She doesn't want to stop but he's always had a pull on her. She stops short but doesn't turn around, not wanting him to see her crying, especially since she can't exactly wipe her tears, since she'll apparently freeze them.

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry. 'Cause that'd be a load of bull." He takes a tentative step forward, hearing her crying but knowing that he's got to do this.

"After my outburst in Figgins office a while ago, they assigned me a therapist while I completed my community service. One of the things she told me was contributing to my anger was keeping things bottled up."

He takes a deep breath, wishing he had pockets to shove his hands into, waiting to get some sort of reaction out of her.

She sniffles quietly and coughs, trying to clear her throat. She didn't want him to hear her cry. "Wh… what did you do?" she asks, still not turning to look at him.

He laughs. "I grabbed the social worker's notepad and flung it across the room. Then I took a page out of Rachel's book and stormed outta that place."

She was distracting him. He knew her too well to fall into this trap.

"No," he shakes his head. "I was set on putting things out in the open before and I'm going to do that." he takes a deep breath before saying, "You're a bitch."

Relief. A light feeling in his chest. He hasn't felt this in a while. So he keeps going.

"You're a bitch and you know it. But that doesn't make things any easier." He pauses momentarily. "God, I can't believe I'm still in…. You know what I do each morning? Wake up and try to convince myself that you're the biggest bitch in the world and I hate the shit out of you. It works…until I pull into this parking lot and catch the smallest glimpse of you. And then… I don't hate you anymore. I hate myself. I hate myself so goddamn much that it's a miracle I haven't tried to off myself."

He chuckles. "Who knows? Maybe this storm's giving me a chance to off myself with style or something."

She is a bitch, and she's known that forever. It's her defense mechanism, really. If she's a bitch, she protects herself and that's all that matters.

But hearing it from Puck… hearing all of this from Puck, she just doesn't know what to think or how to feel. And most of all, listening to him tell her how he can't hate her makes her heart leap. But at the same time, it hurts because he hates himself so much and it's all her fault. Listening to him talk about 'offing' himself makes her stomach churn, not only because it's her fault but because she can't begin to picture a world without him.

She repeats his words in her head, analyzing them carefully, trying to find the words to say to him.

"Puck I…" she pauses, lowering her head even though her back is to him. She can't even think of the right words to say. "I can't do this…"

She quickly turns to face him. "Puck, don't go," she sobs. "Please don't go. Don't leave me," she murmurs.

She's never been this honest with him but she's realized she needs him.

He stops momentarily. She's realized it. But perhaps she's realized it a bit too late.

"It's not going to be this easy," he says, knowing if he turns back and looks at her he's going to cave in and run to her and just hold her. "You can't just ask me to not leave you after you've left me so many times. It's just not fair."

"I… I know, I just…" she trails off and takes a careful step forward. She tentatively rests her fingers on his shoulder, barely touching him. "I need you," she murmurs.

He shrugs off her touch. Her fingers are barely on him, but her lower body temperature and his higher one allows him to feel the change.

"Come find me when you're not cheating on Sam with Finn and practically screwing the both of them," he snaps, walking off soon after.

"Puck," she whispers as he walks off but it's useless. She leans back against the wall and begins to cry again, covering her face with her hands, not caring about the frozen tears on her face.

She had lost him for being so stupid, so selfish. And now all she wants is to disappear.


End file.
